Mars hoax was a hoax circulated by e-mail that began in 2003, that claimed that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27, 2003. The hoax, which has since resurfaced every year from 2005 through 2013, began from a misinterpretation and exaggeration of a sentence in an e-mail message that reported the close encounter between Mars and the Earth in August 2003. At that time, the distance between the two planets was about 55,758,000 kilometers, which was the closest distance between them since September 24, 57,617 BC, when the distance has been calculated to have been about 55,718,000 kilometers.